Continuing along with NaNoWriMo and my desire for harsh criticism on unfinished works, here is the next installment. Also, tab doesn't indent on these posts, deal with it.

Chapter 2: I’m picking up Good Vibrations

The light of the mid-afternoon sun shines through the Power Rangers curtains casting a multi-colored, but predominantly blue glow in Kyles room. Reaching up to the top of the bunk beds, Kyle wakes up from his nap wet and cold. He doesn’t like to take naps, so this was an exception to the rule that would prove rather disastrous. Climbing down the ladder to the floor he walks over to the clock which brightly shines 15:30, a remnant of when his mom was a field medic in the army. Kyle had overslept and didn’t get to say goodbye to his mom for the day which meant that Chris was currently in charge.

He looked around the room, dead silence has gripped his nerves. No one was home, Kyle did not like to be at home alone. Searching through the unkempt, laundry covered floor. Kyle picks up his favorite white tank top, stained with ketchup and bearing a large red circle with an armor clad samurai riding a auburn horse. Before putting it on, Kyle notices the shadows creeping from the piles of clothes around him. First taking the shape of ferocious monsters, then rounding out into what they were, which was like the rest of the room, dirty clothes.

Kyle quickly darted out of the room, quickly putting on his shirt in the process, entering the living room. A quick scan and listen confirmed his suspicions, he was indeed alone. “DNKK!!,” a loud thud can be heard from upstairs. This frightens Kyle as he drops to the ground. Living in an apartment, Kyle shouldve been used to these sort of happenings, but Chris told him that those were monsters coming down to eat him when no one else was around. Kyle learned to fear these outbursts as if they were the right hand of God coming to claim him.

Remaining on the floor, Kyle begins to army crawl towards the window facing the inner court of the apartment complex. He is slightly snagged on the rug as he makes a quick roll to his right to finish the trip. Safe for now, Kyle peeks up over the ledge of the window and into the common area below.

Just past the outside of his window, the sidewalk on his floor obscures his view of the entire court. Fearing that the thud would return, he glances from one end to the other looking for his brother, he only sees the whitish gray of cement, bleached by the sun, staring right back at him. He would need to stand to get a better view, which would also bring him closer to the thud. Kyle, shaking, jumps to a standing position while screaming “Come and get me you emmefer! I know Karate.” and he starts slashing his arms in a chopping motion all around. He opens his eyes, he wasn’t being attacked nor was there piles of defeated zombies all around him, the threat of the thud was gone for now.

Without anxiety, Kyle could now calmly walk over to the door. As he started around the brown recliner that Chris liked to sit in, he noticed a note. After picking it up he realized that it was addressed to himself from his brother:

“Kyle,

If I’m not here then that means something awful happened to me. I won’t be able to help you clean your pissy sheets, make sure to wash them in the bathtub before rounding up a posse to come and avenge my death. Mom will be home at 19:00 then will have to leave again, find me before then, or else I might never come back.

Yours in Christ,

Chris”

The note softly fell to the ground. Kyle realized he would have to rescue Chris, but fearing what might happen if he doesn’t follow the instructions on the note exactly, what they might do to Chris, would be on his hands. So swallowing his fear, he runs to the door of his room, swinging it open wildly, he now stands in the middle of that same blue glow from earlier, illuminating each pile of clothes into a new monster. He must tread lightly now, as he creeps with big steps over each pile towards his bed. Hurried, he rips the sheets off of the bed, flinging the pillows to the ground and darts back towards the open door, with the urine soaked sheets draped around him for extra protection against the foul creepies in the room.

In a yellow flash, he was back out in the living room next to the note on the floor. He leans over and picks up up, checking his itinerary. “First, get the sheets,” he says aloud, “then wash them in the bathtub.” Kyle looked up from the note, down the short hallway towards the door from the bathroom, it was closed. Kyle knew that the door to the bathroom was only closed if someone was in there, then he thought to himself that if Chris has been kidnapped, then who could be using it? Still wrapped in his dingy sheets, he creeps towards the door. One foot in front of the other, getting closer, fear gripping him, that the thud could return at any moment and take him too. Almost there, shuffling the last few feet past the paintings of owls in the hallway, just before the turn for the kitchen, he stopped, now at the door to the bathroom.

Completely wrapped now, peering through the thin sheet, he places his hand on the door knob. Visions of what could be inside flashed through his head. From zombies to even the devil himself could be awaiting him. Like a lump of half chewed broccoli in his throat, the fear welled up. “I need to arm myself.” he said loudly, thinking that whatever is in there might hear him and run away. Nothing made a sound from the inside, he knew that the zombie devil was waiting, to do to him what he assuredly did to his brother. Kyle went a few steps back into the kitchen while not taking his eyes off of the door. He reached blindly into the sink to grab a weapon. After reaching around, he grabbed the handle of a wooden spoon. Knowing it’s power by what it has, on occasion, done to his backside, he reassured himself that it could defeat anything.

With a better plan in mind, he takes off the bed sheet, and grips it in his left hand. Inching closer to the door, he raises up the wooden spoon in his right and declares, “Alright Zombie Satan, I’m coming in, if you don’t want your butt smacked then you better leave right now!”

There was no reply

Kyle grabbed the knob, swallowed the lump in his throat and swung the door open violently. He threw the sheet into the bathroom and started swinging the wooden spoon in the air. In a fit of rage he jumped in, still swinging, opened his eyes up long enough to see that there was nothing there. Kyle let out a cry of victory, but reaching down to the floor to pick up the sheet, realized that the devil would be back, and he must complete his mission.

Kyle double checked his surroundings. The small bathroom could not afford a proper hiding place for the monsters he feared. It was what was always in the bathroom. A plastic sink on top of fake wooden drawers. “No devil in there”. He pulled the shower curtains out of the bathtub across from the sink. “No devil in there”. Then he peered around the corner of the tub, nestled away behind a small wall dividing the bathroom was the toilet, seat up. He wiped his brow, there was no sweat inching down his face but had seen it in movies enough to know thats what you do when you find relief from a stressful situation and once again said, “No devil in there.”

He started the faucet in the bathtub to begin washing his sheets. After plugging up the drain he grabbed the laundry detergent from under the sink and poured a little in the running water. The water turned blue then foamy bubbles started rising up. He turned off the water and threw in the sheet, swirling it around. He didn’t really know how to wash it, normally someone was there to help him. So he did what he thought was best, which was to let it soak and start formulating a plan on how to rescue Chris.

Kyle sat on the edge of the tub with his left hand moving the bed sheet softly in the water, he realized that he was lucky this time, and that if the devil actually did take his brother, like he had feared, he would be no match for him. He would need people to help him, like some of the second graders he play’s marbles with out in the apartment courtyard. He says to himself, “Yeah, if I get Sherman and Diontre and we arm ourselves, we can beat the devil straight back into Hell!”

Figuring that the bed sheet was washed, he unplugged the drain, turned on the faucet and rinsed it out. Ringing it into a ball several times to get all of the soap out. Holding the bed sheet, he stands on the edge of the tub, and threw it over the shower curtain rod to dry and stepped down from the tub. Proud of his accomplishment, Kyle walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen to grab a handful of Cherrios from the box on the counter next to the sink. He shoved all of them in his mouth, he knows that he will need energy for the long voyage to save his brother.

Out of the kitchen in the hallway Kyle, still chewing the cereal, makes his way for the note on the floor next to the recliner. Bending down to pick it up Kyle swallows the rest of the Cherrios and checks his list again. “Alright, I scared away the devil and washed my sheets.” he said, glancing at the note. “Now to rescue Chris so Mom doesn’t get mad.”